Federal police reject pay offer

The federal government’s push to cap annual pay rises within the public sector at 3 per cent is being tested in bargaining at the Australian Federal Police.

AFP members have rejected an offer which included pay rises of 14.5 per cent over four years. A 3 per cent increase would be followed by an increase of 3.5 per cent in 2012 and by increases of 4 per cent in each of the following two years.

Police command argued that the increase was “fair and reasonable" and retained the force’s six weeks’ annual leave plus further options for taking leave.

One contentious part of the proposed deal involves removing a pay loading for about 500 officers who mostly work office hours and are not required to work shifts.

An AFP spokeswoman said yes­terday that the force would survey staff to get their views on the rejected draft agreement before bargaining resumed.

She said the overall offer would have cost about $274 million and was to have been funded through efficiency and productivity gains around work times, along with tighter eligibility for rest days and allowances.

The deal was recommended by the Australian Federal Police Association. It did not comment yesterday.

The AFP bargaining comes as the government is trying to cap annual pay rises within the broader police service at an annual average of 3 per cent.

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The hazards and often irregular working hours of policing mean that federal police officers, like their state counterparts, have more industrial clout than other members of the public service.

The AFP’s current pay rates start at $41,310 to $45,884, rising to a band of $87,455 to $93,677 at the sergeant level.

Three bands for more senior officers range between $93,667 and $135,241.

Elsewhere, the government is wrestling with the ramifications of the equal pay test case before Fair Work Australia which would cover about 300,000 women working in the social and community sector.

Fair Work Australia has accepted that the workers are underpaid and that this is partly based on gender.

However, it has added that the issues were complex and more work was needed to assess the extent to which “gender had inhibited wages growth".

The Australian Services Union said the case could lead to wage rises of between 17 per cent and 80 per cent, posing a question on how the increase would be funded.

Employers are worried it would pave the way for pay increases in low-paid private sector jobs such as childcare, retail, hospitality and cleaning.

Workplace Relations Minister
Chris Evans
has asked Fair Work Australia to adjourn the case to allow further discussions with the union and other key parties. Senator Evans said “useful progress" was made during private conciliation talks and that agreement was possible on methodologies to assess the level of “gender undervaluation" in the sector.

He said in a letter to FWA president
Geoffrey Giudice
that work on the case’s fiscal implications was almost finished and the government wanted to canvass possible broader sector change in the talks.

The case has been complicated by the election of Coalition state governments in NSW and Victoria, which have a more sceptical view on the case than their Labor predecessors.

The NSW and Victorian governments told an FWA hearing yesterday that the request for an adjournment had been made at the last minute and they reserved the right to make fresh submissions if new evidence was tendered.

FWA has adjourned the case until November 28 with further hearings in early December.

Outside the hearing, ASU assistant secretary Linda White said the union accepted the adjournment to allow further time to discuss what were “complex issues".

The case is the first since Labor removed the barriers to pay equity claims in the federal jurisdiction which required an applicant to prove discrimination as a prerequisite to an equal pay claim.